Thousands died
in a storm of gore that would haunt the nightmares of the survivors for the
rest of their lives. They finally reached the point where those pushing from
the rear could no longer overcome the force of those trying to shove their way
out of the death trap. Many more died trying to escape, until the flood tide
reversed, and anyone still on their feet pushed their way out of the plaza.
The pulse lasers
stopped firing, waves of heat rising from their multiple barrels. The
Tsarsorians in the compound cheered, until they got a good look at what was
waiting for them in the plaza. No bodies, and even few recognizable pieces of
bodies. Mostly just a slush of liquid with scorched bone chips sticking out, a
mist of red tinted steam hovering over all. And they looked at their allies
with fear in their eyes, realizing that the humans were death incarnate.
Chapter Sixteen
You think war is hell. I’ll give
you hell, and keep giving it until you fear me more than the devil.
Lt. General Kwan, First Lasharan
War.
“We’ll be ready
to strike again within twenty-four hours,” reported Colonel Tom Margolis, his
holo image looking at the holo image of Lt. Colonel Mary Isaiah, his second in
command.
“I concur,” said
the light colonel, nodding her head. “We should have all suits and vehicles
serviced and prepped well before then, but we can definitely use some down time
before the next operation.”
Nguyen looked
back and forth between the two holos of his senior Marine officers, his mind
still dwelling on the last operation. As far as they knew, Honish now had
neither nuclear warheads nor the means to deliver them. There might be a
submarine or three still in hiding, parked under an icecap, or deep in an
oceanic trench somewhere, though the latter could only be very deep diving
vessels. His force had seeded the ocean with probes that were currently on the
lookout for such submersibles. There also could be some mobile launchers still
hidden. Both atmospheric and space based sensors were searching for any trace
of radioactivity that might tell of hidden weapons, but had yet to find any.
We
figure they shot their bolt in that last attack. Why hold anything back? But
we have to remember that these are aliens, and their decision trees might be
different from the ones we would pursue.
The Honish navy
had also ceased to exist for all intents and purposes. Again, there might be
some smaller craft hidden here and there, but nothing large enough to be a
threat. And the terrorist and guerilla cells were all but destroyed. Maybe
some survived, but they were unlikely to strike in the near future, not after
the beating they had taken.
That beating had
much to do with not committing his Marine and Naval landing forces to another
battle without some rest. Intelligence had estimated that they had killed over
fifty thousand of the Klassekians, including sailors and pilots. And
collateral deaths must have reached near a hundred thousand, despite the
caution the humans had used in strikes in and close to cities. But the
Imperial Marines and Spacers committed to that battle now had to live with what
they had seen and heard, and for some of them that would take months to
reconcile.
The actual
physical damage to his own forces were light. Forty-seven dead, twenty-one in
one incident where a modern antiair missile, one of the few remaining in the
hands of the terrorists, had knocked a transport out of the air by penetrating
its underhull weapons bay. Two sting ships and six fighters downed, one
shuttle disabled, and mostly light damage to one hundred and seventy-eight
battle armor suits.
“We’re picking
up ships in hyper VII, sir,” came a call over the com.
Probably what
they were already expecting, though it never hurt to be cautious. He looked
back at his Marine commanders. “Go ahead and get everything set up for a
provisional launch in twenty-four hours. We may be changing plans on the fly
if these ships are bringing what I think they are.”
An hour and a
half later the first of the vessels jumped into normal space, and their
identities were verified by the sensor and com officers. All ten of the ships
were hyper VII, capable of translating to a higher dimension than ships with
only a VI drive, giving them four times the speed between systems. There were
two more battle cruisers in the group,
HIMS Buzz Aldrin
and the
Vasco
Balboa
. Accompanying them were three light cruisers,
Chan Chun, George
Vancouver
and
Tenjiku Tokubei.
Four destroyers rounded out the
explorer warships,
Harold Tillman, Wang Dayuan, Jeffrey Peters
and
Auguste
Piccard
. And the true treasure of the convoy, and something the Admiral
was not expecting, a hyper VII liner, one of the few in existence, the
Lusitania.
Nguyen looked
over the specs of the last ship that he had pulled up on a holo.
Lusitania
was
not large as liners went, with a capacity for two thousand passengers. Of
course, when transporting people in cryo, that number could be tripled, since
those passengers wouldn’t need amenities such as dining or recreational
facilities. And, counting the time in and out of systems to the hyper barrier,
as well as loading and unloading, she could carry three times the number of
passengers of a comparably sized hyper VI in the same time period.
And now, if
we only had a hundred like her
, he thought, shaking his head. Actually, to
save all six billion of the intelligent inhabitants of the planet, he would
need over a million trips from ships like this. If the entire resources of the
Empire were put to evacuating this planet, they could still not do it in the
time they had.
Besides that
liner, which he would have loaded and dispatched as soon as possible, the
exploration ships carried between them another brigade of Marines, seven
squadrons of sting ships, thirty assault shuttles, and three squadrons of
atmospheric fighters.
“Colonel
Margolis,” he said into the com, initiating a link with his Marine commander.
“I’m downloading the list of your reinforcements. I think it would be best if
we held off on your operation until you have a chance to add them to your order
of battle.”
“I would have to
agree, Admiral,” said the Marine officer. “While I think we could still carry
it off, it is always better to have more in reserve.”
* * *
“You realize,
sir, that the humans will be striking at us next,” said the Klassekian with the
rank insignia of the Supreme General of the Honish Military.
“And it is your
job, General, to stop them,” said Zzarr, his primary eyes locked with those of
the officer. “By all means possible.”
“I am not sure
that it is possible,” said the Supreme General. “We have very few nuclear weapons
left in our inventory. It will take months to assemble any more, and launch
vehicles are still going to be a problem. And the humans have proven that we
cannot stand up to them in open combat.”
“Also, there is
no way we can strike at their ships,” said the Chief of Intelligence. “It is
difficult to shoot down their aerial vehicles. Really, the only point of
attack that leads to any kind of success is against their research personnel,
when they are out in small groups. And even then, the odds of our people
getting away are slight.”
“I don’t care
about our people getting away. They can be martyred, and go to paradise.”
“Suicide
bombers,” said the Chief of Intelligence, raising a tentacle into the air. “We
can get volunteers to wear explosive devices, drive vehicles full of
explosives, even fly aircraft into ground targets. I am sure we will be able
to get our quota of volunteers when we tell them they will serve Hrrottha by
such attacks.”
The Leader
stared at his Chief of Intelligence for a moment. “Why didn’t we think of
that? From where did this idea come?”
“From the
history of the humans,” said the Chief of Intelligence, his face taking on an
expression of joy. “They gave us access to some of their historical databases
when they first arrived, I guess to prove how trustworthy they were. And their
ancient history, before they left their home world, is replete with examples of
suicide bombers. Civilian terrorists, military pilots.”
“Brilliant. Let
it be so.”
“You realize,
sir, that our chances of driving them from this world are remote,” said the
Supreme General. “And they are already moving people from this world away from
the judgment of the God. It may already be too late.”
“We still must
try,” yelled the Leader, slamming his left side tentacles on the table. “The
God has given us this test, and we must do the best we can.”
Zzarr turned
back to his Chief of Intelligence. “How is the interrogation of the prisoner
going? Have you come up with any new insights into the enemy?”
“She is well
conditioned to resist any means of persuasion we might employ. And we don’t
know enough about her biology to utilize chemical means. Chemical means,” said
the Chief of Intelligence, waving his right side tentacles in the air.
“Chemical means.”
“What is it?”
demanded the Leader.
“Just a
thought. And maybe a means to actually hurt the aliens. I will have to talk
it over with some of my staff, but it might be feasible.”
* * *
Warrant Officer
Melissa Sung opened her eyes as the too bright lights came up in the room. She
had lost track of time, only measuring it by way of the meals they brought her,
at what seemed to be infrequent intervals. And, of course, the interrogation
sessions.
Torture is
more like it
, she thought. The Honish had some diabolically effective
methods of pain inducement, which, unfortunately, seemed to work on humans just
as well as their own. They would have been extremely effective against old
style humans, the ones before the Improvement Project of eight hundred years ago.
Those humans couldn’t even turn off their pain pathways, and had to suffer
through the repetition of signals from pain receptors to the sensory strip of
the brain even when such signals were no longer useful. When people needed to
rest, to heal, they were still disturbed by throbbing pain.
Melissa could
turn off those pain pathways, stop the signal, even while they were trying to
push her nerves to the limit. But she had to make them think she was still in
pain, something that stretched her acting abilities to the limit.
“More
questions?” she asked as the being she only knew as the Inquisitor walked up to
her.
“No more
questions,” said the being. “We have wasted enough time on you. It is time to
put your body to some use, if your mind won’t cooperate.”
“What do you…”
The last word would not come out of her mouth as the Klassekian put a device to
her forehead and fired a fast moving dart into her brain.
“Get her
prepped,” said the Inquisitor to the two other males who then entered the
room. “Command wants her found within the next twelve hours.”
* * *
“We monitored
the meeting between the leader of Honish and his staff,” said Susan Lee,
sitting across the desk from Admiral Nguyen.
The Admiral
looked up from the small tactical holo he had been using to track the incoming
ships, thinking about the other vessels the initial report had told him were
coming in hyper VI from base. And contingents coming directly from the Empire
through VII and VI.
“So, what’s
their plan?”
And can we stop it by taking him out, which should happen in
the next forty-one hours.
“Suicide
attacks,” said the Chief of Staff. “They’re planning to use fanatics to attack
us with explosives, either strapped to their bodies or in vehicles.”
“And how do we
stop them?” asked Nguyen, rubbing his temples. “I’m assuming we can use our
chemical sniffers to track them.”
“That would
probably work, in most cases, but we were given some information by the
intelligence services of Tsarzor and their allies that the Honish have an
advanced binary explosives industry.”
“So they’re
going to hit us again, and hard,” said Nguyen, shaking his head. “I wish we
had just gone ahead and crushed the Honish when we first arrived. Damned
fanatics.”
“I looked up
some historical references to Old Earth,” said Lee, pulling up another holo
that showed a view of what was considered a tall building at that time. “This
was a time when the technology was similar to that of this planet.” An
aircraft came flying into the picture and hit the side of the building, giving
the structure some scale. The building had to be about four hundred meters
tall, compared to the three or four kilometer high structures of the Empire.
“They had a number of competing religions, and most thought they were the only
true faith, while the others were populated by fools and liars. The Western
world was the more technologically advanced, and the Eastern, which was
dominated by one of the more fanatical religions, used asymmetrical warfare
against the West. Such as terrorist attacks, like flying a passenger aircraft,
fully fueled, into landmark buildings.”
“And how did
they deal with their fanatics?”
“They tried all
kinds of things,” said the Chief of Staff. “Reason, reconciliation, giving in
to demands. But nothing seemed to work other than military action.”
“Which we are
already engaged in,” said the Admiral, watching the aircraft slice into the
building, a ball of flame flaring out into the air from where it had hit.
“One of the
experts of the time said this about the military strategy,” continued Lee. “He
thought they needed to kill all of them, and their families, and their pet
goats.”
“Barbaric
thinking,” said the Admiral, closing his eyes and shaking his head again.
“What was the name of this fanatical religion.”
“Islam. And
their followers were known as Muslims,” said Lee, looking into his eyes.
“But, they
aren’t fanatical today. And they’re still around, so obviously the opposition
didn’t take the advice of that expert.”
“No, but there
were religious wars, and many of the homelands of the Muslims were devastated.
Hundreds of millions were killed, but the faith continued.”
“And that
changed them?”
“I think the
lure of better technology, and a better standard of living convinced most of
them to adopt a more accepting attitude. That, and being thrown off their own
homeworld with the coming of the Cacas. Nothing like being totally defeated by
an alien power to rid one of an attitude of being specially blessed by God.”